CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK

The curriculum framework is the skeleton of the academic programs at Chitkara School. The framework is the result of ten years of extensive research done by our team in building a school for 21st-century learners. Before designing the curriculum, an extensive survey was done to understand our learners and their ideology and the generation to which they belong. Each generation has its own distinct set of values that are developed from the social environment in their early years. Different generations have different values and beliefs regarding family, career, the work/life balance, training and development, loyalty, gender roles, the work environment and expectations of leaders. Demographers have named the different generations around today as Veterans, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z.

• The Veterans are the people who were born before 1946
• The Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 and have the largest population of any generation
• The Gen X was born between 1965 and 1979 and had both parents working, were exposed to daycare and became known as “Latchkey Kids”
• GenY was born between 1980 and 1995 and are also known as the Millennials or Net Generation
• Generation Z was born after 1995 and are known as Digital Natives and are used to instant action and satisfaction due to internet technology. They are not yet adults and have never known a life without the internet. Their communication is mainly through online communities and social media like Google, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook rather than personal meetings with their friends and acquaintances.

Curriculum at Chitkara School addresses the needs of Generation Y and Generation Z

This is mainly because we are their creators. Baby Boomers and Generation X gave them birth and nurtured them and Generation X developed the technologies that shaped them this way. Thus, at Chitkara International School Effective learning styles and relevant, valid and reliable assessment techniques have been innovated, designed, developed and incorporated to cater to the needs of Generation Z learners.

Today’s students are digital learners-immersed in the media culture-they literally take in the world via the filter of computing devices like the cell phones, handheld gaming devices, laptops, i pads, computers, TVs and game consoles at home. Research surveys have indicated that young people (ages 8-18) use electronic media for more than six hours a day, on an average. Many are multi-tasking-even listening to music while playing a video game. Even Preschoolers easily navigate these electronic, multimedia resources on games in which they learn colours, numbers, letters, spelling and even more complex tasks such as mixing basic colours, problem-solving activities and reading. However, although students understand how to access and utilize these tools, many of them are used for entertainment purposes only and the students are not truly media literate. At Chitkara International School our students use these tools to function in an active collaborative, research-based environment which involves researching, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and creating new knowledge!